Chapter 98: Closing Arguements
"I did not kill Paul."
The room stopped. Some of the standing players like Ksenia, Sun-young, and Detective Matasaburō were bewildered.
"What...?" Ksenia did a double-take. "That’s all you have to say for yourself? That you didn’t kill him?"
"I knew it," Kazi said, to everyone’s surprise. "So it’s true?"
John crossed his arms and met Kazi’s gaze head-on. "You’re quite the detective. I couldn’t figure out what you were trying to do until a few minutes ago."
"I don’t get it," William said, looking between them. Something happened, something that snapped John and Kazi into the same conclusion. A conclusion that nobody understood.
Like an old man educating the youth on matters of health, John kindly turned to William and asked, "Tell me, who went to the bathroom first: Tony or Paul?"
"Well..." William didn’t have an answer. "We agreed about the same time, right? And since he’s dead, they probably died at the same time..."
"It seems nobody except Kazi noted what a strange coincidence that was," John said. "Tony ate his dinner and oddly went to the back bathroom at the same time as Paul. We chalked it up to food waste. A silly presumption, if I’m being frank. Ask yourselves again with a modicum of foresight: why did Tony go to the bathroom?"
There was a silent why at the end. Why did Tony go? Why? From the sound of it, it was an obvious answer.
"You’re saying Tony went there..." Nash trailed off. He blinked twice and stared at John.